When Soviet troops stood at the gates of Kolberg on March 4, 1945, an incredibly fierce struggle for survival began, led by the fortress commander Colonel Fritz Fullriede, with only around 3,300 soldiers against a vastly superior force of Russian and Polish troops. Kolberg - this German port city in Pomerania that had been German for 700 years - was overcrowded in March 1945 with refugees from West and East Prussia. Only a tenacious and self-sacrificing military defense of the city and harbor offered the residents, refugees, wounded, and soldiers a chance to escape by sea and avoid the fate of captivity, deportation, and the whims of merciless victors. During the fourteen-day siege and the relentless fighting for every district and street, the rescue of 70,000 civilians was achieved. 2,000 surviving defenders remained.